Thursday, March 15, 2007

FREE MONKEY

In case you were wondering, which you probably weren’t, the reason I’ve been somewhat quiet for the last few days is that I came down with a flu bug immediately upon landing in England.

Or, probably more correctly, that tiny cough I developed while packing got a lot worse over the Atlantic. For whatever reason, planes are sickness machines. If you board a plane a little sick, you’ll get off sicker. I arrived at Heathrow with a raging fever. I noticed this when I got to the London Office and began talking to the dog. Sadly, the London Office does not have a dog. I was talking to a lamp.

So, for several days, I could do nothing at all. I was flattened. I managed to get out my thoughts on how to deal with Amazon reviews. The rest of the time I spent asleep, or trying to sleep, or sitting in front of the television with a box of tissues in my lap. Pretty much the most exciting thing that happened for a few days was that we went to the supermarket because I needed a bottle of something called Night Nurse.

We also needed another box of tea, because I was drinking it at a ridiculous rate. I was reaching for a small box, which was all we really needed, when I noticed that they had massive boxes marked FREE MONKEY. Along with the freakishly large box of tea, you got a sock monkey in a little t-shirt.

I sniffed and reached for one of these.

“You’re getting the big one?” Oscar asked. (Of course, it was Oscar who had to drive me to the store in his Oscarmobile.)

“Free monkey,” I explained, putting it in the cart. (It came out more like, “Fwee mukky.”)

A sock monkey in a t-shirt is probably the last thing I need, but there was something about the words FREE MONKEY that I could not turn away from. And the people who make PG Tips tea know that. It is a cheap but effective trick. It’s amazing how little it takes to satisfy us.

Could you say no?

Speaking of that, I was just reading an e-mail from my good friend, editor J.Z. Migraine. J.Z. suffers from crippling insomnia, so he will often write me long, brilliant screeds in the dark of the night.

“You’re doing your blog all wrong,” he wrote to me. “People want to hear about what you like to watch on TV. That’s what they’re really after.”

Is this true, readers? Have I been denying you what you have wanted all along?

Well, then! Since I have caught up on some TV this week, I have decided to compile a listing of my TV CRUSH HISTORY, starting from the earliest days. What I find, in looking over my list, is that I generally fall for the wrong character. I rarely “take the free monkey” when it comes to watching shows. And when I do, I get very mad about it.

CRUSH ZERO: WILLIAM KATT

When I was a tiny mj, we had a neighbor across the street who was in high school. He was handsome, with curly blonde hair, and apparently, I LOVED him. I flirted with him CEASELESSLY, I am told. (By flirting, I mean “screamed his name across the street.” I was three at the time.) I don’t remember this, but everyone likes to tell me about it. It makes a certain sense, though, when you look at my first crush . . . William Katt.

William Katt starred in a TV show called The Greatest American Hero, which I can remember absolutely nothing about except the theme song and those luscious blonde curls. I developed a lifelong case of something I call “William Katt Love Hangover,” which has left me hopelessly enthralled by curly-haired guys ever since. Peter Camp, the love interest in my book The Key to the Golden Firebird, probably owes his curly hair to this disease.

WK seen here in the movie Carrie, right before the pigs' blood comes down. Oh, those curls. Look how they shine.

OMEGA CRUSH: MURDOCK, THE A-TEAM

Confession: when I was little, I worshipped the A-Team.

Is the A-Team the worst television show ever made? Pretty much. It’s violent. It’s formulaic. It makes almost no sense. But I didn’t see that at the time, because I wanted to BE in the A-Team. I could write many blog entries about my love of the A-Team, but I won’t, partly out of pride, and partly because it would scare you a little. (Such as my amazing do-it-yourself A-Team episode guide.)

The member of the team you were supposed to fall for was Face (or Templeton Peck), played by Dirk Benedict. While I liked Face (I liked all members of the team except for Frankie “Dishpan” Santana, who was not a real member at all but merely a gimmick tacked on to season five to spice up the post-trial Team, but I digress . . .), the member I truly loved with all my heart and soul was H.M. Murdock. Superstar pilot. Actual mental patient (though we all knew that he was faking). The man who learned to speak Chinese in one afternoon. Murdock, with his flexible grasp of reality, was the team member for me. He also seemed to be the only one with any real skills. He could scam better than Face, build better than BA, and plot at least as well as Hannibal. So what if he had an imaginary dog? He was still the only one, after YEARS in Vietnam, who had ANY GRASP of Vietnamese.

My heart was with Howling Mad.

It wasn’t so much a crush in the case of Murdock. I wanted to BE Murdock, because Murdock was having the most fun of anyone. And do I even need to mention that he saved the entire team from execution? No. I do not. Moving on . . .

THE CRUSH I JUST REMEMBERED: FOX MULDER, THE X-FILES

Oh, they laughed at him at Quantico. They called him Spooky Mulder and made him live in the basement. But we all knew Mulder was right, and the truth was out there, and that he really did love Scully. And we loved him, until they got weird and brought in new people, and then I forgot The X-Files was even on so I don’t even know how it ended. I only remembered the show because there is a TV on in the background here, and The X-Files just came on, and I got all misty-eyed remembering the good times with the Fox.

RUN SPOOKY, RUN!

THE CRUSH THAT EVERYONE DEVELOPED: LOGAN ECKOLLS, VERONICA MARS

Okay, Veronica Mars. I didn’t want to watch you. I only did because my agent Daphne Unfeasible slipped the first season of you into my purse. She used my love of girl detectives and my lifelong ambition to open a private investigator business to sucker me in. And I went right along with the rest of you, like a LEMMING.

I had resisted so many. I turned up my nose at Jordan Catalano from My So Called Life. (And who’s laughing now? Anyone seen Jared Leto lately? Ho ho!) I liked Spike as a friend. I never even made it through an episode of The O.C. so I escaped all of that. I thought I could never be lured by The One You Are Supposed to Like.

Hey, Jared. They do make waterproof eyeliner, you know. And does the fencing team know you stole one of their futuristic turtleneck uniforms?

And then, along came #$^*$^ Logan Eckolls.

Those sneaky VM people knew exactly what they were doing, making us hate Logan for so long. They made him evil, obnoxious, racist. For reasons I could barely understand, I started to like him—maybe because I was smugly self-satisfied at not liking Duncan Kane, the first love interest, who is so wooden as to be his very own forest. You could build a cabin out of him.

Duncan Kane: smoking hot, in a “belongs in your fireplace” kind of way

Really, though, it was all a setup for Logan. They USED us. I think they even pulled tricks from the book The Game, which J.Z. Migraine read and Cliff Noted for me. There’s this thing called “negging,” where you (a guy) purposely say something that is negative, so the girl (us) doesn’t think you’re trying too hard . . . or because jerks trigger some kind of elemental biological response in us or something like that. The theory is, we like meanness. Not a lot. Just enough.

Logan negs Veronica left, right, and center . . . and we slobber along. Then they took their good, sweet time redeeming him. They gave us just enough to make us follow along. It was this drop-by-drop baiting that made me end up at Daphne’s door at one in the morning, begging for season two, just because I had to see who was at the door.

I hate myself for it. But there he is. Smart-alack, negging Logan.

I love this @#$^@#^&hole.

Don’t tell me anything about season three. I haven’t seen it.

THE DEAD CRUSH: MASON, DEAD LIKE ME

Yes, you were supposed to like Mason. But since it seems like only 15 people even watched Dead Like Me (sad), I feel like I can get away with this without too much guilt. And Mason is a supremely constructed character, well played. He’s scrawny. He’s smelly. He’s a thief and a drug addict. He died forty years ago from drilling a hole in his own head. And I defy you not to love him.

How can you not love someone who says, “I’m so smart, I’m practically retarded”?

SIDEKICK CRUSH: GUS, PSYCH

Gus is the reason Psych works, and if you’re not watching it, you should. Because of Gus. Oh Gus.

Gus is the sensible sidekick to fake psychic Shawn Spencer. Gus has a real job (he’s a pharmaceutical rep), knows who has won every spelling bee for the last twenty years (and was a champ himself), is a comic book collector, a Civil War buff, a wannabe safecracker, and is still recovering from his own TV crush on Elyse Keaton, the mom from Family Ties. He also has an imaginary cat named Missus Pickles.

Gus is very good at spelling. How many characters can you say that about?

I’m sure there are more, but I need another cup of tea. There is a lot of it to get through, you know, because of the big box. Still, FREE MONKEY.

Do you have a TV crush? Or is there a TV show you have been dying to get my opinion on? Please let me know.

41 Comments:

Daphne Unfeasible said...

Ah, Face. I had it so baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad for Templeton Peck. Recently, due to my love of the Faceman, I even poo-pooed the new version of Battlestar Galactica because they deigned to make Starbuck a woman. My Face! A Woman! The shame!

(Then a friend forced the DVD of the miniseries on the J. Faust Kimbel and myself, and we were sucked in with the rest of the world.)

But oh, Face. My love for you, in my impressionable youth, was matched only by my affection for Michael Knight (I confess to writing a fan letter. I must have, else why would they have sent me the schematics for K.I.T.T.?), that delicious and talented Hardy Boy Shaun Cassidy, and Bo Duke.

I fell in love with Gus from Psych as Charlie in the West Wing. He's awesome. Not as awesome as Josh in the West Wing, though. Josh definitely has the Logan Eckolls negging-thing going on. Along with a sulky-boy-thing that is simultaneously teeth-grindingly irritating and endlessley endearing.

Maureen Johnson, you are cool. First I read your blog, and I thought, Hey, this chick is funny. Then I read "Devilish", and I thought, Hey, this chick can write. And now I read that you love Logan Echolls. And you know what? I think I love you. Though not as much as Logan. No, not as much as Logan. I <3 him. LoVe :D

Okay, I have a very obscure TV crush. There was this show that was on for about one season back in the 90's called Earth 2. There was a character in there, Alonzo, played by Antonio Sabato Jr, who everyone was supposed to fall for. Pfffffft! Not me! I liked the Clancy Brown character, John Danziger, who could be a great guy, a flaming @$$hole, a hero, a grouch, a goofball, a meanie, and a great daddy, all in the same episode.

Other crushes, not necessarily TV-related:Mal from FireflyLogan EchollsHan SoloRemus LupinCharlie Epps from Numb3rsHiro from Heroes, in a cuddly-teddy-bear kind of wayCute Boy God from Joan of Arcadia, in a completely blasphemous and sacreligious kind of way

I went skipping down the pictures on this post, going "yes... yes... yes... maybe?... yes... Uh—" and I stopped when I got to Duncan from VM, very confused... enter the actual reading of the blog (novel, huh?) and the satisfied scrolling down to Logan. Ah, Logan... *sigh*

I've never posted a comment here before, so I'd just like to say that I love your books, and your blog is hilarious. I can proudly say that I've never seen Veronica Mars. Up until a few weeks ago, Lost was largely a mystery to me. I pretty much don't watch mainstream TV (although Scrubs is completely awesome), with a few exceptions.My TV crushes... well, there are four. And two of them are from the same (now discontinued) show. Mal and Wash from Firefly were two of the collest characters ever. I've loved Alan Tudyk (Wash) since I saw A Knight's Tale, and Firefly cemented that. And I'm completely hooked on Nathan Fillion (Mal.) I also love the Tenth Doctor (from the current Doctor Who.) He's got this lanky look that is just so cool, and his expressions are brilliant. I was so exicited when I realized that I had a movie that he was in (HP 4, playing Barty Jr.)This last, I am a little reluctant to admit. Due to a strange set of occurances, I am now hooked on Supernatural, and in love with Dean. Sad, yes, but true. Although, I am less hooked now than I was last year. I didn't completely freak out when I missed the new episode that came on last Thursday.Firefly is still far superior to pretty much anything else I've seen so far. I'm completely obsessed with that show, even though it's all over now.All right, I think I've said enough. I can't wait to read Girl at Sea!

I have only followed ONE TV SHOW for the last five and a half years: Crossing Jordan. It's dark,funny,and has the most brilliantly screwed up characters and has been written to perfection this sixth season! and I LOVE steve valentine (aka Nigel)!

I'm like the only guy posting here; so this will look weird compared to the rest =P

I had (still kinda have) a crush on Elliot Reed from scrubs. I love(d) her so much

and I had a crush on Joan from Joan of Arcadia. I totally hated Adam (for dating my!!! Joan). ugh I miss that show, stupid cliffhanger-and-then-canceling-the-show

I watched dead like me too (so that leaves 12 other people). although I didn't watch it on tv (it wasn't broadcasted in the Netherlands, so I downloaded it. I remember mason (and his british-flag-underwear, which he showed of a lot) well.

If you haven't seen the very last episode of The X-Files, at LEAST watch the very last scene. They made it matter to the characters, to Mulder and Scully, and I think it works for fans who saw them as friends as well as those who wanted them together romantically. There's a full circle sense to the setting and the careful nature of the dialogue which I appreciate.

I loved Clancy Brown from Earth 2 as well. His voice had a lot to do with it, as did his general bad-boy vibe. Hose me down!! (I was recently reminded of this crush when I encountered him in that Kevin Costner flick "The Guardian.")

Maybe I just have a thing for redheads. I was also in love with Major Winters from Band of Brothers, played by Damian Lewis.

I currently lust after Eddie Cahill, who plays the cop on CSI: New York. I just...wow. I don't even know the character's name because I go totally braindead when I lay eyes on him.

I have too many crushed to list. So I won't even try. Seriously. They do, however, include Patrick Dempsey (Greys Anatomy), Dr Chase (House MD), and Adam Brody (The OC... how could you NOT watch that show????)

Like others here, I'm completely obsessed with Firefly- and totally have a thing for Mal! Logan's up there on my list, too, for all of the reasons you stated (and because his name is Logan, and I have a long and drawn out history of falling for characters named Logan (as is documented here: http://www.theboyfriendlist.com/e_lockhart_blog/2007/01/an_abundance_of.html).

Really, though, as much as I love a good TV chat, the highlight of this entry was totally the free monkey. I feel strangely compelled to go to the store and see if I can find one, even though I don't drink tea nearly as much as everyone else on this side of the pond. I'm curious, though, does your monkey have a long tail? Because based on his face and size, he kinda looks like he might be an ape instead of a monkey, and that would just be false advertising.

Oh, my dear Mason has finally achieved the recognition that he deserves! I actually thought Dead Like Me was this huge hit, but apparently all of us Sci-Fi original TV show viewers are one in a million. Dead Like Me is just wonderful. And so is Mason. Just look at those fingerless gloves, and that ability to be tossed out of every public place he manges to get in. This blog entry was from a long time ago.

I love Dead Lide Me. I wish they didnt end it. = (. I have a small crush on Nathan as well...but not really, only slightly. = D

My TV crush is David Tennant from the new Doctor Who and the 4th Harry Potter(and soon to be shakespeare...but thats in England which is far away, but I will be there next year, so hopefully I will be able to see him)

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